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Oleg watched a machine. It looked a little like a microwave oven, with a turning plate inside. The plate held on it something that resembled a jaw. A laser shone at the jaw, melting a miniscule spray of metal that was being steadily poured onto the jaw. Oleg leaned on the counter, his chin resting on his forearms.
    “Hey.”
Freida had walked in through the door. Oleg had commandeered the room as his office, and had been busy building prosthetic limbs for the past few days. A half-finished arm lay on the floor.
     “What’s that doing there?” Freida asked.
“I was half-way through when I realised I’d put a left hand on a right arm,” Oleg grumbled, snarling at the arm. Freida snorted a laugh.
      “How are you?” she asked, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s hard being a soldier, isn’t it?” Oleg asked with a wry smile, shifting his head to look into her eyes. He could see his reflection in their green irises.
     “Not as hard as being a Marine, she smiled, “Come on, chin up.”
Oleg smiled weakly. He yelped suddenly as he felt his feet leaving the ground, and dashed his head on the machine.
    “I forgot you could do that,” he said, resting his head against hers. She’d picked him up, and almost cradled him in her arms. He put his arm around her shoulder, and smiled again.
   “Would you trade it all in, though?” Oleg asked, “Everything we’ve been through? The Revolution, this invasion, all the wars... would you trade it in for a normal, almost mundane life?”
       Freida looked into his eyes, and shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
“No,” she stated simply, and kissed him.
    They remained there for some time.
Oleg sighed, and jerked his head at the machine as it beeped.
      “Looks like Colonel Von Goose-step-Pickelhaube’s jaw is finished,” he said, “Erm... put me down, please...” Freida let him down, and leaned in to examine the jaw as Oleg removed it from the machine.
      “How does that work..?” she asked.
“Laser cladding...” Oleg explained, “Design what you want, feed it into the computer, and it builds it for you. Laser melts this little spray of metal, which falls in place, building up a layer. Mad, when you think about it. But it’s a nice structure for Oberst Pfirsich Von Bratwurst.”
       “He carried on operating, you know,” Freida said with a sad smile, “Erwin carried on operating for half an hour after losing his jaw.”
      Oleg stopped, his mouth slightly open. Behind his goggles, Freida could see his eyes blinking in disbelief, and could almost hear the cogs of his brain clunking as they processed the information.
      “Woah,” came the final product of the calculations, before Oleg walked off, inhaling through clenched teeth, “That’s brave.”
      Freida followed in his wake. They walked through the factory, now empty, and down to the basement stairway.
         “Before we go down,” Freida said, gripping Oleg’s bicep, “I wanted to ask you something.”
      “Yeah?” Oleg asked, leaning on the railings.
“Have any of your soldiers been wearing any new iconography?” she asked, “Like, odd badges, or the like?”
      “Not that I’ve noticed...” Oleg said, stroking his chin with his welding gloves, “What sort of badges?”
     Freida looked around, as if she was about to confide a great secret. She kneeled down, and began to draw something in the dust that had settled on the factory floor.
     “Like this...” she said, tracing out what looked like a large rectangle divided into three smaller, horizontal rectangles. To finish, she drew the Roman numerals IV onto the rectangle, right in the centre.
     She allowed Oleg to look at it before hastily scrubbing it away.
“Why the secrecy?” Oleg asked.
“When I asked about it, the Army Colonel in charge of my base got shirty. He wouldn’t explain any of it, or why an awful lot of his regiment are wearing that symbol.”
      Oleg racked his memory.
“That looks like the old tricolour, before the Revolution...” Oleg mused.
“Yes!” Freida almost cheered, “It was red, blue and white!”
    “Still no clue, sorry.”
Freida nodded. “Listen,” she said, “While I’m down here, there’s something else I’d like to do.”
   “Surely we can find somewhere more private..?” Oleg blathered. It was now his turn to cast furtive glances about, and his cheeks visibly reddened.
      “No, you plank...” Freida said, trying to keep a straight face, “I had something else in mind. Oleg, this war, this Revolution... just... just this world... makes me realise that everything changes. Everything we do is just a futile struggle against the growing chaos, but we can grasp snatches of calm, of safety and security, and I’d like to do that... Oleg; will you marry me?”
       Oleg looked into her eyes. His jaw sagged open a little. Where Freida had almost heard the cogs of his brain clanking merrily along earlier, all there was now was an infernal grinding as the cogs jammed.
      “Yes,” he stated blankly, thunderstruck by the sudden proposal, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Freida repeated, the beginning of a grin born on her face.
“Yes!” Oleg replied, pumping his fists, “Yes!”
 Freida leapt up and clasped him to her chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and they hopped a little, laughing and cheering.
     Freida’s assistant looked on from the stairs, quizzically scratching his temple.